Making Packaging Part Of The Product

Discouraged at the mounds of packaging you’re throwing away every time you buy new stuff? Artist [David Gardener] may have just the solution for you: design products where the packaging is an integral part of the product itself. We can envision a whole line of IKEA furniture, for example, that turns inside-out and uses the cardboard box as part of its internal support structure. On the whole, this may be just a touch less tacky than making furniture out of packaging not intended to be used as furniture at all (i.e. FedEx boxes).

Not a bad concept, but as therian points out, artists are not engineers. What would be more practical is a flat-pack lamp that can be shipped in a simple envelope and assembled according to instructions printed on its own ‘inside.’